Saddled by the weight of electronic information

…and coming Monday (CAP)
Eight rounds for time of:
8 Hang Power Cleans (135/95)
8 Box Jumps (24/20)
8 Clapping Push UpsThis is a follow-up to my blo post from Tuesday regarding mental clutter. It’s such an important topic… the amount of information we’ve got to sort through each day is growing, and we all need to develop skills and habits that allow us to be super conscious of and super possessive of the limited time that we have for ourselves, and the important people in our lives.

After posting about my Facebook & Twitter limits on Tuesday, I realized that there was a huge missing piece regarding mental clutter that I hadn’t written about yet… email. Over the past few years I’ve allowed myself to subscribe to various online email lists, websites, retailers, coupons & deals, social media, etc. Each day, one of the first things I have done when I pick up my iPhone is to go to my email and group delete all my permission based “spam” emails that clutter my inbox. I never really took the time to count them all up since when I delete them, I do it in a big batch. Well, when I limited my Facebook time, I got annoyed by all these emails and decided to remove myself / unsubscribe from any subscription, newsletter or advertising/information list that I was on. Wow. I had no idea.

It took me about 3 days to clear things out and unsubscribe, but once I had, the amount of relief in both my email inbox and my head was HUGE. I’m guessing that I was subscribed to 25-30 lists and was getting between 15 and 20 (possibly more) superfluous emails a day. Even though most of these I would just delete without even looking, getting new unread email badges on my iPhone was something that kept me incessantly checking things… keeping me plugged in, mentally cluttered. And even though 90% of the time I just delete them, I always see who the emails are from, and for that one split second (or more), that causes me to “stop and think,” adding to the clutter. And if I’m just deleting them anyway, why subject myself to their presence in my inbox?

Now my email inbox is CLEARED OUT – and so is my mind. I know that when I get an email (way less frequently), that it is NOT junk mail that just needs to be deleted. I also made sure that for the email lists of people who’s blogs I still want to follow, I subscribed to their RSS feed in Google Reader. The difference now is that I can go in and read them when I want to, instead of getting another unread email badge in my inbox.

And why, you might ask, is this something that I’m writing about on a “fitness” blog? Well in my opinion, “fitness” encompasses ALL parts of life that impact my ability to be healthy – physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Electronic garbage has a huge impact on my health, and I suspect you as well.

And by the way, just because I’m writing about my “solutions,” doesn’t mean that I think I’ve found the “solution.” I’m just experimenting and trying things out, seeing what sort of impact they have. I’d love to hear your thoughts about the impact of electronic information on your life, and how you control it, or at least keep the noise and mental clutter to a dull roar! Maybe between us all we can come up with some creative ideas for the benefit of everyone!

“Saddled with the weight of a bumper plate… or is that the weight of electronic information?”